After the fall
by emptysummer
Summary: Three years. The tremor in Johns hands comes back first, two months after Sherlock dies. Spoilers for the Reichenbach Fall. Speculatory. Two shot
1. Chapter 1

**After the fall**

Three years. The tremor in Johns hands comes back first, two months after Sherlock dies. Spoilers for the Reichenbach Fall. Speculatory. Two shot

Laptop is still dead- written in my journal then transcribed on to an draft in the email app on my itouch then copied onto an existing document. Told linearly with time skips, watch for the jumps. Any medical stuff was referenced from my Anatomy & Physiology textbook and a bit of google to back me up. If I've completely screwed up drop me a line and I'll fix it. Not a Brit. Anyone who wants to brit-pick earns my undying gratitude or cookies or a fic of your choice whatever your preference is.

Warnings: Uh... Trying to write a realistic Moriarty? Angst. Sorta John/Sherlock. If you squint

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><p>Three days after the fall (jump. Fall, because pride goeth before) he digs out the expensive bottle of scotch a client gave them and fills a tumbler, setting the bottle six inches to the left of the glass. Sherlock would have analyzed the motion, dissected his history with drinking, fleshed out his motives, habits, all delivered in the clinical tone of someone who was completely disinterested in the facts he was rattling off. Drinking was afterall terribly mundane.<p>

Sherlock said "it's all true." Then going for the gut punch "I invented Moriarty." He was lying and John will never believe otherwise.

He reaches continually for the tumbler, pulling back abruptly as though it will burn him so often his shoulder seizes. He remembers Harry and the ever so easy slide into the bottle. It's a long night the bottle sitting open in front of him. Day three bleeds into day four and when dawn comes aching he empties the glass into the sink then smashes it against the counter. He should be crying. He isn't.

Day five sees him attempting to call in a favor with Molly just to be absolutely certain but Moriarty's body has already been picked up. Going on instinct he calls Mycroft next but the man will neither confirm nor deny anything.

Ten days- the kitchen seems horribly empty after John clears out Sherlocks experiments but John doesn't understand the point of most of them and the body parts were starting to rot. Looking at surfaces that are clear for the first time since he moved in he wonders if despair can be tangible, and finds proof in the disinfected countertops.

Two weeks after Sherlock fell, Molly calls him, leading with "I believe in him." That statement is what gets him out of the flat- just for long enough to confirm he still has his job but it's a start.

At the one month mark the furor over the fake genius dies down. He is dead not that that has ever stopped papers trying to sell before. Adler had told him that they were a couple and it's the truth in every way except one. They weren't having sex no matter what the papers speculated. No matter that sometimes Sherlock looked at him sometimes like he was fascinating. But everything else? That was them. John never believed in soul mates before meeting Sherlock because he had never looked at anybody and had something click before. But standing in St. Barts lab something had clicked.

The tremor in Johns hands comes back first, two months after Sherlock dies. The limp follows shortly thereafter. Sarah has started to give him slight pitying looks over coffee and quietly watches his patients files for obvious mistakes. It's concern of course rather then wanting him to fail but the quiet second guessing does nothing for the shaking in his hands.

John still lives on Baker Street largely because Mrs. Hudson would never forgive him if he moved away and he is clinging desperately to the few remnants of the past Sherlock left behind. (Almost like he knew this was coming. Knew the game was moving on. Sometimes when it's very very late and John absolutely can't sleep he thinks that Sherlock planned this.) Maybe it would have been better to move on. Forget. He does the next best thing and does not allow himself to slide into the rosy glow of nostalgia. Sherlock was impossible, brilliant, just a smidge insane. He shot at the walls when he was bored, left body parts in the fridge, was only truly happy when there was a murderer to catch. A genius, and a sociopath. Take the good with the bad and somedays there was more bad then good. (Somedays when his hands are particularly shaky and his limp at its worst, John wonders why he stayed.)

Six months after that day, John visits his grave yet again and wonders when (against the explicit instructions of the man) he turned him into a hero. But placing men on pedestals never ends well and he fell. At night the memory of long pale limbs failing through air makes him wake gasping for air.

Nightmares of Sherlock have replaced his dreams of Afghanistan, of sun and sand, desert skies and the sound of bullets. John wonders if he should be grateful.

Six months and three days and John wakes to the memory of falling, feeling like he should be screaming, pale eyes not watching not observing never again playing behind his eyes. He's listening for the strains of a violin to lull him back to sleep when it hits him that it wasn't a dream and it hits him all over again, the crushing wieght that accompanies grief. He curls onto his side and wishes he could play the violin. Sherlock's instrument had lain untouched since his death.

Six months and three days and John is completely unwilling to deal with Mycroft right now. He understands that he's under surveillance, understands the reasoning behind it, but he's sleep-deprived and angry. Today is one of the worse days so he allows himself the few cheap shots he has (weight and mummy and still cleaning up after Sherlock's messes?) in the idle hope that he will be left alone.

He isn't. Mycroft surveys him the patient long suffering look of an eldest child and waits until John offers him tea before setting aside his umbrella. They drink their tea in strained silence and Mycroft starts to say something at least four times but always cuts himself before speaking. John wonders very briefly when the other man learned tact. The Holmes brothers have never had an abundance of social grace. Mycroft takes his leave without saying what it was he intended to say and this becomes his habit to drop by for tea and study John like he has the answer when he doesn't even know the question.

Seven, eight, nine months pass with the same sickening mononoty and there are moments when John can almost sympathize with Sherlock's distaste for boredom. Being an adrenaline addict is well and good when you have a war and a cause or are living a genius who places, placed, past tense, his life on the line for kicks.

He finds a shooting range in the city and walks there after work. He spends hours shooting the recoil of his pistol slamming in to his palms, the crack of the gun soothing him. (Sometimes with a gun in hand, his hands don't shake at all. Sometimes with a gun in hand they do.)

Ten months and twenty-four days and John realizes absently over dinner he hasn't thought of Sherlock once in eight hours. As soon as he thinks it his good mood vanishes sinking away into the all to familiar feeling of irrelevance. John is nothing if not loyal and the fact that he could do nothing for Sherlock leaves a sour taste in his mouth, turning food bitter.

A year and John limps to Ella's office for a two hour appointment despite Mycrofts disapproval. (Mycroft had told John he should fire her on their first meeting.) He manages a mere fifteen minutes before excusing himself. Ella still harbors the delusion that his limp comes from stress and he does not have it in him to correct her. He thinks about going to a pub before going where he always knew he'd end up the grave again.

Sherlock wouldn't approve of him buying flowers. Sentiment was distasteful so he clears the grave and waits. Waits because that's all he's done since Sherlock jumped, locked into a holding pattern because normal is boring and life is dull grey without him.

Thirteen months after he died John and Mrs. Hudson are feeling maudlin so they talk about Sherlock over tea. It's well past two in the morning but it's clear neither of them will be sleeping tonight and it hurts but it's the clean hurt of healing wounds not the raging ache of infection or the slashing pain of old (still not healed) scars.

Fifteen months six days sees John running into Lestrade on his way home from the store, milk in hand. They talk and it's clear Lestrade has no idea what to say to him. Which is fine because John hasn't forgiven them yet doesn't know if he ever will forgive them but when Lestrade invited him to the pub for a pint with the yarders he accepts.

It's an unmitigated disaster. Starts off well though. They're enthusiastic to see him and greet him like it hasn't been more then a year, like the last time they saw him it was after his best friend leaped to his death, discredited by the people he's with now. He knows it's a mistake but he's already there and he's not going to run. The high point comes when he turns down Donovan who makes a pass at him after two pints. The low point comes directly after that when she accuses him of pining for a dead freak.

The silence following is telling as not a single one of them steps forward to defend Sherlock. John doesn't bother. He's sick of dealing with bigots and people enjoy destroying what they can't understand. Nothing he says to Donovan will change her mind so he leaves.

Lestrade comes to 221b the next day and apologizes and John curbs his anger for just long enough to accept it and show the DI out. Then he coils his rage and walks to the shooting range.

On that day at twenty-five meters with a handgun he has one hundred percent kill shots. His hands do not shake at all.

Mycroft drops by to inform him that if he continues to drop weight he will take steps to ensure that he gains it back. He says Sherlock wouldn't have wanted this and John nearly screams. Sherlock is dead and Mycroft has no right to continue to interfere in his life. For the first time since he died John seriously considers moving. Escaping Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson and the ghost of a man who he might have loved for all that he's really not gay. Soulmates in the sense that you were in sync without trying- Johns much shorter legs keeping pace with Sherlock because that was how it was meant to be. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. It has a nice ring to it.

Eighteen months. A year and a half and Mycroft is moving to clear Sherlocks name and he wonders at the purpose of it. Mycroft does not make unnecessary moves in the game he plays with the world. For the first time since he stood at a grave and asked for a miracle, hope sparks.

It sounds melodramatic to say that boredom led Mycroft to world domination but the more John knows of the man the more he thinks that this is the case. He has tea with the man who runs the British government (and possibly the rest of the world as well), lost his genius friend to his arch nemesis. It is quite clear he doesn't, didn't live in the real world when he was with Sherlock.

One, two years passes and John feels like he should be counting down to the day when he'll wake up and things will be alright but he's counting up. Counting up to the rest of his life in a lonely flat surrounded by ghosts. Boring! Sherlock would say if he could see John now with greying hair, carrying a cane. He still doesn't sleep well and the lines around his face have deepened. He's gotten old waiting for the world to right itself.

He tries dating a couple times after the second anniversary of Sherlocks death but it never ends well and eventually it's easier to be alone then it is to try with his imagination coming up with the idle observations of what Sherlock would have thought of this girl or that ringing in his head. He's thinking of getting a dog.

John used to think that that was what he wanted. A home in the city, a wife, children, and a dog. Then he met Sherlock and he saw no future but this. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson living in 221b Baker Street 'till the end. He just hadn't realized it would be so soon.

He takes to watching people from the window of 221b unconsciously imitating a certain consulting detective trying to puzzle out the passing peoples lives from glimpses out the window. Dragging up old memories of Sherlock informing him how to deduct this bit of information or that little fact. It still hurts but less now the dull ache of old wounds and a shoulder seizing when it rains.

He had asked are you ready? on the first day of the trial unaware of that he was setting them on this course. Two possibly dead men and Sherlock disgraced.

Two years, eleven months twenty-seven days. In three he'll be at Sherlock's grave again still waiting for that miracle. He's at the window when a man in a dark suit approaches the front door of 221b Baker Street and assuming it's one of Mycrofts lackeys he sets the kettle on. It disconcerts them when he offers them tea.

He realizes what a mistake he's made when Moriarty lets himself into the flat.

His gun is tucked into the top drawer of the desk in the far corner of the sitting room. His phone is on the window sill. But judging by the way Moriarty crosses to the window, takes the phone and waves Mycroft's surveillance knows that Moriarty is here. He does what he can and finishes the tea offering Moriarty a cup.

It's all terribly civil as he lets Moriarty take his chair and settles into Sherlocks. (And yes it is still Sherlocks chair even if the man has be gone for near on three years.)

"Johnny-boy! You're not surprised to see me." Moriarty looks the same as he did at the pool when he had ordered John into an explosive vest. Looks the same as he had at trial except this time his dark eyes are fixed on John. His hands are not shaking at all.

"I wondered." John admits. "Seems a by foolish to put a bullet in your brain just to rid yourself of your greatest nuisance given that you wouldn't be around to reap the benefits. "What do you want?"

Moriarty is smiling the same brilliant, mad smile Sherlock had worn when there was a murder. "Well isn't that rude." He sing songs. "Ask politely Johnny-boy."

"Sherlock is dead."

"Is that so?" He hums the first bars of staying alive. "See this is an experiment. You like experiments don't you? Have to living with Sherlock. I promised to burn the heart out of him."

"Sherlock told you he didn't have a heart."

"And I told him the we both knew that wasn't true." He's laughing.

"Never figured it out did you doctor." Moriarty levels a very cold look on him.

"You're his heart."

"While burning you alive would be soo gratifying I doubt we have that kind of time. Big Brother is watching. I might shoot you. Might kidnap you, torture you to death, capture it all on tape, post it to the web. Sherlock would enjoy that wouldn't he?" The question is almost off-hand as it what he's saying finally sinks in.

"So he's alive then."

"You should be paying more attention to the death threats then your little crush."

"Is he?"

"Of course. The great consulting detective could hardly be killed by little ole me. He's a myth now. Thanks to me."

"You thought he was dead. Otherwise you wouldn't have left me alone this long."

"Careful Dr. Watson you might fry a few things deducing like that."

"So what now?"

"Come on Johnny no rage? Betrayal? Angst, confessions of love? How sad. I was hoping for a show before I killed you."

"Funny."

"Isn't it?"

"Look over your shoulder."

Later he'll wonder why Moriarty fell for it. A child's ploy. Now he's scrambling for the gun and somehow has it leveled before Moriarty has fully recovered himself. Moriarty has a handgun out.

"I'm a better shot then you."

"Are you? You don't know that."

John shoots him. Moriarty shoots back instinctively as he falls.

Moriarty- shoulder hit. Misses the subclavian artery, lodges in the scapula. Unlikely to kill but the nerve damage will be a bitch. John knows.

Himself. Looks like the limp will be real this time, missed the femoral barely. Through and through. Hurts. He's attempting to stay conscious, searching for the phone.

There's two men at the door and he thinks he sees an umbrella and a familiar dark coat before he passes out.

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><p>Ducks. Sorry I cut it off there but apparently drafts have a word limit and I kept losing the next paragraph. Do you know how much typing on a iPod sucks? It's taken me six hours to type all this and the second part is roughly the same length. Cookies and love would be much appreciated right now.<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

Look at me completing something. Only took me seven weeks. So this only got done through a convergence of events- shitty day, a summer thunderstorm, and some angsty angsty music. And I _still_ might have eviscerated Sherlock's character. Sorry. Thanks for the love on part one.

**Shameless bribery: **drabble of your choice any fandom, any pairing, if you beta for the obvious mistakes writers always miss in their own works and/or brit-pick part one or two  
><strong>Warnings: <strong>Character death. Suicide. War and gore (they tend to go together hand in hand.) PG-13. Some angst. Gen. Sherlock/John undertones if you choose to take it that way. SPOILERS FOR THE REICHENBACH FALL

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><p>The beep of heart monitor machines has always irritated John. He reckons if came from the week he spent in the hospital after he broke his collarbone The sound is to his right whining in his ear. It's what causes him to regain consciousness, not the rather heated discussion occurring over his head. They are so obviously trying not to yell.<p>

"Sherlock can you not be reasonable for once in your life."

"You said you would keep him safe! Not minimize his surveillance."

"I maintained his surveillance. Did you really believe that Moriarty would leave him alone once he figured out you were alive?" Mycroft is speaking, it has to be him because nobody else ever corrects Sherlock. They tend to mutter bastard or psychopath in his wake but John has long since resigned himself to watching Sherlock's back for that sort of nonsense.

"This was supposed to be done with before it came to that and you were supposed to keep him safe." His voice raises and cracks, an oddly emotional statement.

Interestingly enough it's Lestrade's voice that cuts them off. "You can bicker later. What the hell are you doing here Sherlock?"

Presumably they're talking- arguing really for all that its in whispers, about him. He's groggy from the painkillers and the damn machine is still beeping right next to his ear. He tries to smack the noise away from him and feels the Holmes brothers startle. He wonders if he should be feeling smug that they hadn't observed that he was awake (they only turn off that particular trait when they trust someone and he's only seen it a few times. ) The wave of pain that washes over him centered on his right leg dismisses the thought.

He still hasn't opened his eyes. Maybe because he's afraid. Maybe because he's angry. He's far too doped up to try and untangle the knot of emotions that's settled in his chest at the thought of Sherlock's return.

"John?"

That's Sherlock sounding shockingly hesitant. As though he hasn't figured out exactly how all the possible variants of this conversation will happen. Then again he was never all that good at the emotional stuff.

John blames the drugs for his inability to focus.

"John. Open your eyes."

The tone of command he's more accustomed to has crept back in. He opens them. Two years eleven months twenty-seven? days and he'll still follow the man blindly. John is fairly certain he gave up any chance of normal when he moved in with Sherlock but he rather resents being ordered about like a dog. (Moriarty called him a pet and John would have been a bulldog. Sherlock would have been a cat. Focus.)

The pleasant sensation of floating is wearing off.

Sherlock is hovering above him. He's even skinnier then before. He's terribly lean, more efficient looking then he had before. Looking at Sherlock had always startled him previously because the man is pale and sharp, jarring to eyes accustomed to the rest of the human race which prefers ascetic curves to utilitarian lines. Clean lines as though cut by a scalpel. Grey eyes that had glowed when there was a case on, illuminating a pale face. A mop of curls topping the head, contrasting with marble skin.

Now the differences are exaggerated, compounded by years on his own, skin paler, eyes darker, lines sharper, hair wilder. His cheekbones are sharp contrasts to the hollows of his cheeks, and there is not an ounce of fat on him. John wonders if this is what he was like before they met- consumed by his obsessions.

Mycroft is making himself unobtrusive and Lestrade is glaring at Sherlock his look clearly saying 'now you went and woke him.'

"John. Are you alright?"

That is the question that does it- solidifies the feelings into a knot. He's angry then; angry at being discarded this way, angry that when Sherlock came back he expects them to pick up where they left off.

"Go 'way Sher'ock." Not good that he's slurring. More drugged then he thought.

"John I understand you're angry with me but-"

"Sherlock." Good he's regained motor control. "We can have this conversation when I'm not drugged."

"No we can't."

The heart rate monitors beeps speeds as he struggles to sit "Your leaving again?" Beyond Sherlock, Mycroft seems to be all but dragging Lestrade from the room. Has to be the drugs.

Sherlock pushes him back down. "No. John I'm staying. I'm thinking of my welfare. You used to tell me to do that."

"If you were fully able you'd probably hit me, then treat the wound. It would appease most of your anger and make forgiveness easier since you would feel guilty. That's how I saw our reunion going when this began. Your reactions to my death meant that our reunion could be less potentially violent since you would be pleased to see me. Unfortunately Moriarty got to you first."

He can't help it. "Unfortunately." He's aware that sound he's making could be called sputtering. "You utter bastard! I learned that my best friend faked his death from the man that supposedly caused him to commit suicide."

"There was no other way."

"Yes there was. You could have told me. Instead you went off to god knows where and left me behind."

Sherlock hesitates and it looks so very wrong on him. Sherlock is running head long in danger without thought because he knows John has his back. Sherlock is thoughtless and brilliant and cruel out of boredom and he never filters a single thought before saying it. He's attempting to filter now.

"Spit it out Sherlock." He wants answers, he wants to sleep, he wants to have not wasted the past three years of his life mourning for a not dead man.

"Moriarty had assassins-"

"You're not telling me anything I didn't know." He's not being unreasonable.

"-and your reaction was the key. As long as you believed that I was dead you were safe."

"Moriarty didn't seem to have gotten that message."

"An outlier, uncalculated, John. I didn't know." He's not being unreasonable dammit.

"He attacked me in my home Sherlock."

"Our home."

"Is it?"

Again Sherlock hesitates. Visibly, painfully searches for words he doesn't have the experience to come up with. It hurts just a bit watching a man who has absolute faith in his abilities doubt.

It hurt more to stand by his grave and ask for a miracle. Now that he has it, he's not certain he wants it. Be careful what you wish for.

This moment has been building for so long, brick by brick to the shape of a flat with one of them outside and the other in. Because John could have had a life without Sherlock but Sherlock can't imagine life without John.

Never mind that John can't. Not anymore. Sherlock took a broken man with shaking hands and a psychosomatic limp that had a cause once however foolish (Queen and Country) and fixed him. And then broke him again with a fall.

Donovan said "He doesn't have friends" bitter and angry in four words.

A flat built out of their insecurities, and peculiarities and all they have to do is open the door. But there is three years of silence; guilt and regret (a black headstone) between them so Sherlock hesitates and John cannot bend because look where that got him. (He's small again, insignificant.)

"I'll leave." Sherlock eventually say quietly, finally.

"No Sherlock. You already did that. Now you get to explain."

Again he hesitates before settling into the chair by John's bed. He was hovering previously, in motion. Never quite settling. Sherlock in motion is beautiful. Sherlock settling is sprawled limbs and boring! tossed over a shoulder. Casual cruelty and a startling insight designed to throw you.

So he sits and spins out a story of intrigue across the world. A criminal organization, a spiders web stretched out across the earth, a single man working to bring it down. When John reaches for the glass of water sitting on the bedside stand the tremor in his hands has evened out. Sherlock watches the motion with a carefully neutral face but his eyes scream triumph.

His voice is hoarse as though he's unaccustomed to speaking for long periods of time. Singapore, Columbia, the States, South Africa, then Europe. England is the seat of Moriarty's power so Sherlock saved that for last.

Last night was the first time he had set foot on English soil in nearly three years.

"Mycroft didn't know for sure that I was alive until a year ago. It took Moriarty longer then that. I think that he thought that when certain branches failed it was Mycroft taking revenge for me."

"Moriarty figured it out three months ago. I was in France. We think there's a leak in Mycroft's organization. He is understandably angry about it. That's how Moriarty got to you. Someone pulled your security."

"But you didn't know that he was coming after me."

"No. I came back because Sebastian Moran killed a name named Ronald Adair yesterday."

"Moran?"

"Moriarty's pet. An ex-army sniper. He's here to kill you."

"Why did Moriarty attack me then?"

Sherlock looks frustrated. "I don't know. It doesn't add up."

"Is him in custody?"

"Yes."

"Then why not ask."

Sherlock looks as though the idea hasn't occurred to him. John seems to be full of surprises these days. He almost wishes they were back in the days when Sherlock could deduce every thought that passed through his head. He almost wishes that Sherlock couldn't pick a single damn thought up from him. Bit conflicted that.

"I will." And John expects him to rush off coat flaring behind him sufficiently melodramatic so that they'll all know the Great Sherlock Holmes is back. Instead he sits with John until the nurses come and load him back up with morphine. The silence is odd. Not awkward but not comfortable either.

The last thing he remembers is what feels like a hand with long clever fingers tracing three years of lines on his face.

When he wakes Lestrade is sitting in the chair Sherlock had previously occupied, looking ten years older.

"I think I owe you an apology."

John half-smiles and because he is that type of man the line of conversation is over and Lestrade is forgiven.

He was out for two days he learns when the doctor drops by and releases him sometime after that. He woke on the second, spoke with Sherlock and slept until late on the third day. It's after three when he's trying to arrange a place to stay, clothes, a new identity that will get him out of the Holmes brothers reach. (The last, he is only half seriously considering.) It is a testament to the lack of privacy John is entirely too aware of that he is not surprised when Mycroft's assistant shows up with a change of clothes and his cane.

He walks out of the hospital under his own power, hands steady and if his limping it's because of the new scar on his leg rather then the head game he succumbed to postwar, post-Sherlock and steps into the sleek black car waiting for him. Anthea follows glued to her blackberry as always.

They been driving for fifteen minutes before he realizes they're headed out of the city.

She finally glances up at him cutting her eyes away from the glowing screen to him, pinning him to his upholstered seat, real leather probably. "I have orders to keep you out the way."

For the first time John realizes she's wearing a gun buckled into a hip holster. The driver is armed as well, the slight bulge in his jacket as he wraps his head around to check on them testament to that. Perhaps Sherlock didn't do as well as he hoped when he taught John his methods of observation.

John forces himself to relax sinking into the seat. "Could I at least get my gun?"

She says nothing pressing her lips into a thin line.

Maybe she regrets that when the car blows a tire on a shaded curve that screams trap to John's instincts, and theirs as well given the way they tense. She hands over a gun (his gun) and a knife quick enough after that, ordering him tersely to stash them.

He does so, the tone in her voice unmistakable as that of a commanding officer. The army is so very effective at beating obedience into their soldiers.

And then.

Some things don't leave you, etched into your bones, scratched into your soul. The ugly things. Because in the end those are what define us.

John remembers this: _hail of bullets, sand and dust, duck, bleed, fight, breathe. _Heal_._

_Bloody hands on an open wound, and the knowledge that the man will die. Triage. Those likely to live must be tended to first but John held that man's hand until he felt his heart still and the blood on his lips stopped bubbling out. A boy screaming hate in a language none of them spoke and a shot nobody else in his regiment could have pulled off. He scrubbed his hands with disinfectant 'til they bled but it still won't come out. _A man. A dying man who didn't die because John was there, hand slicked up with blood tying off the femoral before he bled out.

John remembers war.

So the click of a trigger being pulled in silent woods is enough. He tackles Anthea, to the ground both of them, as the driver falls, arterial blood so red pooling around his body. _The woods are green but they shouldn't be. There should be sky and only sky above dead men. Sand and dirt, pavement and asphalt, below them._

Sniper- Moran. Because it takes a special level of fucked in the head to kill a man from three hundred meters with ice in your veins. Moriarty would have been attracted to that when he went searching for a replacement John to his Sherlock.

Two people pinned behind a car that John can't believe isn't bullet proof with at least one sniper and men on the ground closing fast. Anthea says "I have orders." like an apology.

She's gifted, certainly, with a pistol. But the model she has carries twelve shots, and you miss in real life. Reloading takes longer then three seconds and wounding someone doesn't necessarily stop them. It depends on what they're more afraid of.

Death or Moriarty?

Moriarty seems to winning.

The next bullet from the sniper clips her and he takes over. Aim, inhale, hold, exhale, pull. John was always extraordinarily accurate. It's not enough, despite Moriarty's men trying to take them alive.

His leg is cramping from kneeling and he straightens losing his balance and the gun into her hands. A bullet through the neck to the nearest hire and a gun raised to her head. I have orders. She said, like an apology, and pulls the trigger.

John freezes. Dead dead dead woman with a blackberry and a handgun, assistant to the British government, brains blown out because she had orders.

A blow to the face and the last thing he sees is her hair soaked with blood.

John dreams of sand and sky and a trail of dead men. He wakes with a slap, lying against a black headstone. Sherlock's, because Moriarty would like the image it presents, black and white and red.

John is bleeding. And armed, the knife tucked in his shoe, pistol in the back of his pants, sheer arrogance on Moriarty's part. Because John isn't a threat.

Foolish of him to think that. John Watson is nothing if not dangerous.

Moriarty smiles like a devil and offers him a gun with a single bullet and a choice. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

Moriarty just wants to watch Sherlock burn.

John has issues with that.

It's not long at all until Sherlock comes roaring in. A gun in hand flailing around because Sherlock when is upset is heat and fire burning, sky-high, uncoordinated.

It works for him.

If John plays by Moriarty's rules he's got one bullet and a single shot. But John has never liked this little game, not the way Sherlock did, and has no obligation to play by their rules.

This is a choice. His gun in hand he makes two shots. Moriarty and Moran, the minions having been banished from the final confrontation. It's pure luck that he hits both.

Then the cavalry arrives.

This is the point where a sane man walks away. But John couldn't be called sane for a long time even before he moved in with Sherlock. He's an adrenaline junkie and a soldier and John has seen the battleground. There is no turning back.

Sherlock said dangerous and John came running and that was the end.

There is no turning back.

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><p>Tree pretty. Fire bad. That is all<p> 


End file.
